


california never felt like home to me (until i had you on the open road)

by lydiabennett



Category: Ride or Die (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-11-02 02:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20584061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiabennett/pseuds/lydiabennett
Summary: Here’s the thing: not all new beginnings are worth seeing through to the end.





	california never felt like home to me (until i had you on the open road)

Here's the thing: she always imagined that she’d be glad to get out of Los Angeles.

For the first day, it’s freeing in the way that any catharsis is. She cries on and off during the initial twelve hours, giving herself a headache no matter how much water she drinks, and the fourth time she pulls off at a rest stop she rests her hands against the still-warm hood of her car and she takes a long, deep breath, and she asks herself if she’s driving in the wrong direction.

If the past few months have taught her anything, it’s that she needs to trust her instincts – and that maybe there’s nothing _really_ wrong about driving in the wrong direction – and she tells herself this over and over while she squats over a filthy rest stop toilet, while she pays through the nose for a few ibuprofen from the vending machine outside, while she rolls her windows down again and backs out of her parking space, the steady thrum of the bass a loud and comforting rumble. 

She doesn’t know the song playing; she doesn’t really care. It’s not so much about listening to the music as it is about not hearing herself. 

For a long moment Kaya’s fingers hover over her cell phone, sitting idle in the cup holder. It’s new; she’d only bothered to put a few contacts in, and the number she wants to call isn’t one of them. She knows she shouldn’t take the risk, remembers that he’d made her promise not to call from her own phone unless she got a burner.

(She laughed at that, nuzzled his jaw lightly, didn’t comment on the crooked way his lips quirked upward at the contact. “How does that even work?” she asked, and he snaked an arm around her as if to keep her upright. It wasn’t necessary; they were both sober, and she hadn’t danced long enough that she couldn’t keep her balance now. He just wanted the excuse to touch her, and she was glad to provide it. “Do I walk into a store and say _hey_, _I’m dating a career criminal, can I have a burner phone?_ Do I have to use some kind of code word?”

Colt’s arm tightened around her. “Dating?” he asked, and she’d have been mortified if not for the mirth in his eyes and the way his voice had dropped to a growl. Instead, she played along, knocking her hip against his.

“I’m sorry – is there a more appropriate label for whatever this is?”

“Just memorize the number. It’s for emergencies. Don’t put it in your contacts. Don’t call me from your own phone or your friends’ phones. Pay phones, if you can find them, or a burner, that’s it.”

Like a good student, she memorized the digits, and when he quizzed her on them later that night, his lips working at the curve of her neck and his hands sneaking under the hem of her shirt, she recited them perfectly – and if she could remember while he was doing _that_, then she wouldn’t forget.)

She brings her hand back to the steering wheel and fixes her eyes on the road ahead of her. There’s still a long way to go.

—

Here’s the thing: she always imagined that everything she wanted was at Langston.

It’s a beautiful campus, a peaceful little corner of DC. The cherry blossoms are past their peak bloom but she spends her mornings drinking coffee on a bench underneath one of the trees. She can hear the white noise of the city past the campus’ borders, too quiet to lull her to sleep when she finally settles into bed, and not for the first time since leaving she wonders if she should have stayed.

The program is… fine, she supposes. It’s an internship and it has her running errands as much as actually learning; it’s exactly what she expected and still, somehow, it doesn’t live up to what she thought it would be. Over and over, Kaya answers phones and files papers and sits in on business meetings and attends lectures and and and and and – it’s dull. It’s tiring. There’s no passion, no spark; she tells herself she’ll take the car out of the city and go for a drive, and as soon as she’s felt the rush of an open road and the sight of her speedometer creeping ever higher, she’ll be fine.

But one weekend passes, then a second, a third fourth fifth and then the fall semester is starting. She wears blazers that cover her tattoo and she cuts her hair shorter than she’d kept it in California, tries a new shade of lipstick and a sensible heel, and she feels like the Kaya that had _been, _before she knew what cigarette smoke tasted on someone’s tongue and the glorious freedom that came with the leather steering wheel whispering through her hands. 

And it’s not that she doesn’t _like_ that Kaya. She does. That Kaya was soft, and kind, brave in her own little way even when she didn’t think she _could_ be. Single-minded and ambitious. That Kaya had a five-year-plan, one that the _current_ Kaya had put through a shredder a few weeks before. That Kaya did right by herself and there’s nothing to be ashamed of for the girl she’d been.

And that Kaya would do _so well_ at Langston. But this Kaya is the one who’s here, and the blazers are stifling and so are the heels and so is this school. 

(“What are you gonna do when you get to school?”

“I’m planning to major in business but I’ve been thinking about a double major, maybe with a humanity – ” she started, carding her fingers idly through his hair, but he shook his head and she fell silent. 

After a beat, Colt pressed a kiss to her hip before settling back, his hands folded over her stomach and his chin against his knuckles, her knees bent and feet at his hips. 

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What do you mean, then?”

It was an absurd scene, really; her prom dress was on the floor next to the bed, along with his shirt and jacket. She wasn’t entirely sure where he left his pants, but she didn’t much care. It felt so normal, almost pedestrian – but after the few weeks they’d had, a little normalcy was welcome. She didn’t look like someone who helped steal ten million dollars’ worth of cars not that long ago and he didn’t look like someone who’d been ready to kill someone not long after. 

They looked like teenagers in love. She wasn’t really sure what to make of it, but she thought she liked it.

“You’re going to take your car, right? Are you going to keep driving?”

“After all the work Toby put into it, I don’t think I could bear to leave it behind. Besides – I know you aren’t big on cars, but it almost feels like a part of me. Is that stupid? It sounds stupid.”

“It’s _definitely_ stupid,” he told her, voice flat and expression serious, and she knew him well enough by then to know that he was teasing, and so she poled him sharply in the side with her big toe, flashing him a pout.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re going to be able to leave all of this behind.” Her fingers stilled in his hair and he raised his eyebrows. “Don’t look so shocked, sweetheart. Mona wasn’t kidding when she called you a tourist – you aren’t stuck in this.”

“Do _you_ think I’m a tourist?”

“I think you’re an idiot if you stick with it.” His expression softened, and he pressed another kiss to her skin, this one just above her navel. “I think _I’m_ an idiot for hoping you do.”

“What happened to your plan?” she teased after a moment’s silence that lasted just a bit too long. Her tone was light; her eyes were worried. “I thought we were going to run the city. I liked the ambition.”

“If I said I’d come with you, would you take me?” 

Her fingers picked up their motion in his hair, expression softening. “If I took you,” she said, voice soft, “how long would it take you to resent being there instead of here?”

“I don’t – ”

“_Yes.” _She moved her hand from his hair to rest two fingers against his lips. “I’d take you in a heartbeat. That’s why you shouldn’t say it.”

She remembered the months after her mother died – how desperately she’d wanted to be anywhere but _there, _in all the spaces her mother wouldn’t occupy anymore. And she remembered how much worse it was when she and her father moved into a house in the next neighborhood, something just a little smaller, something her mother’s hands had never touched and that had never smelled like her mother’s perfume. She’d been thirteen; even now, she would never forgive herself for leaving that house if she had a say in the matter. 

He closed his eyes, took in a sharp breath, before crawling up her body. There was something unreadable in the set of his mouth for a moment, and then he pressed closer, lips hovering a breath from hers. “Don’t fuck some trust-fund brat,” he muttered, and she laughed, surging up to meet him.

“I won’t if you won’t.”)

It’s one in the morning; she has a class at eight. Still, it’s the Kaya from _right now_ that shimmies into a pair of jeans, it’s _this_ Kaya that pulls on the boots and jacket Mona had given her over her tank top, it’s _this_ Kaya who snatches her bag and her keys and pulls the door to her dorm room closed behind her.

—

Here’s the thing: not all new beginnings are worth seeing through to the end.

There are still some small towns with payphones. It takes her most of the night to find one but she does, just as the sun creeps over the horizon, staining the sky a dusky pink. With shaking fingers, she drops a series of quarters into the coin slot, and she dials the number, remembering each one as if she’d read it just a moment before. 

The phone rings, and rings, and rings. She remembers, vaguely, that it’s not even four in the morning back in California, if that’s even where he is. For a moment she considers giving up, but the ringing stops and she hears a generic voicemail message – _Please leave your message after the tone. When you are finished recording, hang up, or press pound for more options._

“Hey.” Her voice is husky from tiredness and she lets out a quiet hum, leaning against the metal partition alongside the phone. “I – don’t even know if you still use this number. I know it’s been a few months – everything’s okay. I’m okay. I just miss you, is all.”

No identifying information, in case someone else has it – he’ll recognize her voice.

“I don’t really know what else to say. I just miss you. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. I’ll call again at a better hour – and I’ll let you know when I’ve got my own number. I miss home tonight, I think. It’s too quiet there and I miss home.” When she says the word, she doesn’t think of the house where she grew up, or the house she left behind. She thinks of the garage. She thinks of the shitty studio he rented when he left school, where she slept for a few nights after his fight with Logan, before she went to Riya’s. She thinks, really, of him. “And you. It’s all you. I _miss you._”

And then, her voice small, almost inaudible – “Stay safe? I’ll call you again soon, I promise. Sooner than – god, I can’t believe it’s been four months. I really am _so_ sorry. I love you.”

The plastic of the phone is warm from her hand and she shivers in the early morning’s chill, turning back to her car. 

(“Listen to me. _Kaya_. Listen to me. We have to go – _right now_.” 

It was easier than it should have been to leave Mona there – just like it had been too easy to slam into her car less than an hour before. Colt was waiting, hand outstretched for her to take, brow furrowed with impatience and thinly-veiled worry, and Kaya didn’t think, didn’t even consider staying behind, even for the woman who had taken a bullet for her.

“Thank you,” she said instead, and – “Good luck. I’ll see you around.” Mona had let out a wheezing laugh at that, wincing as she did, but if she responded, Kaya didn’t wait around to hear it. 

She kept her arms tight around Colt as they sped through the streets, kept her arms tight around him as they watched Jason Shaw being led from his home, kept her arms tight around him while he tried to say goodbye. 

“I’ve got to lay low. I can’t see you for a while – I don’t know how long.” And he tried to let her go but she kept a tight grip on his jacket, her head pounding from the impact of the crash earlier and her eyes suspiciously wet. After a look at her, he relented, tugging her back into his grip. “Kaya, come on – ”

“Don’t,” she snapped, tone stern, and he fell silent, tucking his nose into her hair instead, hands smoothing along her arms before coming to rest against the sides of her neck. 

“I _did_ mean it,” he said, and he sounded tired, _so_ tired. “You and me – we’re going to run this city someday. But to do that, _I’ve_ got to settle some things, and _you_ – ” He pulled back from her, though his hands didn’t move. “ – _you_ have to go. Go to school. Figure out if this is what you want, and when you do, _call_.”

“I could stay,” she insisted immediately, shaking his head, and even his rueful chuckle couldn’t silence her. “No, seriously. I could stay, and I could help – ”

“No.”

He wouldn’t be the reason she didn’t at least try. She could understand that much. Even so, she hated it.

“When I call – ” Not if, _when_. “ – will you answer?”

He nodded, pressed forward to kiss her dizzy and half-senseless.

She murmured the same sequence of numbers to herself the whole walk home.

When she woke the next morning to her phone going off, she snatched it up, said only his name – told herself not to be disappointed when it wasn’t him.)

She’s almost at her car again when she hears a metallic ringing, keys in hand and a yawn creeping up her throat. She makes it back to the phone within three rings, snatching it up, and her voice is hoarse and quiet when she finally speaks.

“Colt?”

The phone is old and the voice sounds tinny and distant, but _oh_, it’s his.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't decided if this is a stand-alone or if this will have chapters, but, here it is, and here i am, still having Very Strong Feelings about colt and kaya.


End file.
